Gerald Haman, better known as
Solutionman, holds a brainstorming session at the Fargodome Thursday during
Innovation Growth Day. Photo by Darren Gibbins / The Forum

North
Dakota leaders may not have come up with THE SOLUTION to pumping up the
state’s economy and halting outmigration Thursday at the Fargodome.

But they did come up
with 2,000 possibilities.

About 190 people
taking part in Innovation Growth Day finished the event with a 20-minute
“Thinkathon,” generating ideas to foster more innovation in the state. “To my
knowledge, this is the first time a state has done this,” said event leader Gerald Haman.

“If some of the big
organizations (Fortune 500 companies) knew that almost 200 innovators were here
at the Fargodome” they would be very interested in North Dakota, he said. Haman runs
SolutionPeople, a Chicago-based business consulting company. He’s also a
Towner, N.D., native and University of North Dakota alumnus.

He hopes the seminar
gets North Dakota and Red RiverValley leaders to “identify
other people who are passionate about innovation and create a community to work
together.”

The seminar was
sponsored by the North Dakota Department of Commerce’s Division of Economic
Development and Finance and 14 businesses and organizations, said economic
development director Linda Butts.

“This was not
innovation day for government. This was innovation day for you,” Butts told the
audience. “This is all about working together to build that community of
innovation.” The Thinkathon ideas will
be collated and distributed by the economic development division.

Ideas ran the gamut
from the serious:
- Find more funding for innovators.
- Build an ambassadors of innovation Web site.
- Tax breaks for innovators who move here and stay.
- More in-state flights between major cities to cut time-wasting connections
through the Twin Cities.
To the fun:
- A Tour de North Dakota bicycle race.
- Every city has its own food fest (think really big progressive dinner).
To the silly (or scary):
- Everybody who moves to North Dakota gets a free Bobcat
skid-steer loader to move their snow.
- Arrest anyone who is not innovative.

Seminar participants
said they felt energized, even at the end of a long day. “It was fresh. It was
sparky,” said Gail Nelson of Fargo’s Blue Moon Training
Workshop who, with the rest of the participants at her table, liked
SolutionPeople’s tools for decision making.

The processes and
tools organize thoughts “so you can grab a hold of them and run with it,” said
Jennifer Feist of Valley Development Group of Valley City, N.D.Scott Handy, CEO of Cass County Electric, said
the seminar tools helped jump-start a new concept for customer service at his
firm.

“We’ll start trying
them (ideas) tomorrow,” he said. Haman
said it was a shame the seminar was limited to a day, given the ideas
generated. “There’s a general theme in
having some activities that encourage people to think about innovation,” he
said. “Wouldn’t it be wonderful if 2004 was The Year of Innovation?”